bub bub

she wakes me at 5 a.m.

“Ian I’ve been trying to wake you for fifteen minutes, I need help!”

I look up

trying to make out what is hovering over me in the shadows,

it’s my fiancé.

“I can’t do this on my own!” she says.

I had been on the gas that night,

maybe a carton of beer

after a day of meditation and reading Dogen in the backyard.

perhaps I was a contradiction.

my fiancé was in tears.

“you lift up the brace so I can get the nappy out,

then hold the nappy with the other hand

so that the poo doesn’t spill anywhere,

oh God it’s so fucking hard with this horrible brace,

I hate it!” she said, sobbing.

our baby, our first, had it’s legs in full plaster to bend the knees

and then also in a hard metal brace to get the hips back in.

not to mention the hand splints.

poo time was a shit.

so I had poo over my hands,

poo over my shirt,

I was still drunk, had had a gig that night, was scared that I had left my guitar

somewhere,

maybe in the back of the taxi,

I know someone that had happened to.

time to straighten up, be a solid support for my woman,

but my hangover

and

the sheer stench of this tiny human excrement

got the better of me.

I raced to the fridge to grab a beer for the hangover.

came back in,

she can’t get the fresh nappy back in under the brace,

trying to squeeze it in but it won’t go,

bewilderment in her sleepless eyes,

and the baby screams,

the baby screams like a tiny unheard nothing,

it’s so small.

I suck on the can of beer

then crush it with my fist,

let it drop to the floor.

“baby, what can I do?” I asked.